


let's try again, you and I

by Shamelessly_Radiant



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Drabble, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 07:01:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14827613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shamelessly_Radiant/pseuds/Shamelessly_Radiant
Summary: After graduation, after Logan walked away from her, somewhere in the middle of Obama's campaign, Rory finds herself in Philly, standing before a boy, hoping for something old and something new.





	let's try again, you and I

**Author's Note:**

> Because Jess and Rory will always be my OTP. No matter how nice and rich and charming and handsome Logan was (and honestly, I'd love me a Logan), he kind of brought out the worst in Rory sometimes, he was immature and childish sometimes, and their worlds vastly different. Rory would've not been happy, I think, being a Huntzbergers wife. And yes, Jess ran away, but that was when he was a teenager, and later on we saw such a grown up version of him, someone ready to shake some sense into Rory, someone who motivated her to go back to school. Jess and Rory clicked, shared the same interests and that's why they belong. Like Milo said, it's Rory that needs to change to have Jess be Team Rory again. I didn't watch AYITL, but I assume Rory to be a little 'adulter' now. //end rant//
> 
> Title ideas are very welcome!!

Somehow, in Philadelphia, they suddenly get a day off, just like that. And if Rory hadn't been thinking about love the last few days, about the future and decissions and choices that make a person who they are, she wouldn't have done this. But she had been thinking about her future, about what would happen when she got of this bus and went back home, she had been thinking about the kind of person she had been, was and wanted to be, and so, her feet had carried her right to Truncheon.

Rory enters, and he is sitting _right there._ In the same spot he confessed his love for her three years ago, the same spot where she made that awful decision to run away, to run back to Logan. He’s looking at a book, his body turned and he hasn’t seen her yet, and she is almost out the door again when she swallows; stops and thinks ‘ _I should be brave’._

“Hi Jess,” she whispers, and he turns: surprise, confusion and anticipation clear on his face. And _of course,_ she starts to ramble: “How are you? I mean you must be good, I can’t assume that you would not be good just because what happened, it can be that you are perfect while I am not and honestly that’s exactly what I would deserve, that you would move on, find someone far prettier and just a better person than me because I am an awful person and I am so sorry, and I- I should really go, I’m sorry, so well-“

“Rory,” he says, standing up, and she swears there is a flicker of a smile on his face, though it is gone a second later. “Shut up.”

She closes her mouth slowly, opens it again: “Hi.”

That is definite amusement on his face now; his eyes sparkle as he locks them onto her, arches his eyebrow slightly as he always does **:** “Hi.”

There is some warmth in his voice, and she doesn’t think when she rushes forward and wraps him into a hug- she’s always been a bit impulsive when it comes to Jess Mariano.

For three seconds he is like stone against her and she doesn’t dare breathe, but then his arm presses warm against her back, a fist by her hip and he sighs into her hair. She knows this because the way his breath ruffles her hair sends a chill through her spine.

She lets go slowly, and doesn’t speak.

“Congratulations on your first job,” he says and she flashes surprised eyes up to his. Luke must have told him, then, or maybe he had asked about her. She’d hope for the later, but knows that it’s a selfish thing to hope for. Knows that at the least he deserves to have moved on from her. Knows that she has been mean and selfish and spiteful to him, and the  _least_ she deserves is his interest and forgiveness. And yet stands before him now, waiting- hoping still, despite everything that has been between them.

He pushes his tongue into his cheek, a gesture she recognizes as him thinking. Hands in his pocket, leaning back casually he asks: “what are you reading now?”

"The Subsect," she says, and smiles wide, so very wide. It is not even a lie, it is one of the few (okay, for her) books she had packed for the tour.

"Yeah?" Jess asks, and there is something guarded in his eyes, but at her earnest nod his face becomes pleased and the corner of his mouth rises and rises into the half-smile she loves.

And as they stand smiling at each other, Rory dares to hope for a second chance.

 


End file.
